Why are my periods so heavy?

Let’s understand how your period works. Many of us do not understand the basics of how our menstrual cycle works. And that’s okay. Who did we have to teach us?

Being able to identify any abnormalities in your cycle is one way to find potential health problems so understanding your menstrual patterns can help you a lot.

You and any adolescent girls in your life might want to consider charting your cycles. There are a ton of apps for this purpose. I can’t personally speak to any of them but I’m sure you know someone who can recommend one.

The bottom line is that your period is a definite reflection of your overall health.

The pill is the doctors answer to period pain, PCOS, irregular cycles, endometriosis, heavy periods, acne….. the list goes on.

One thing you need to know is that being on the pill or any other hormonal birth control does not give you a period. The pill actually forces you to bleed but this is not a period. Bleeding from the pill is from the dose of the hormones in your body and the lack of them in that 4th week.  Your period is occurring from an interaction of your natural hormones, ovulation and progesterone production. It occurs about every 28 days- this part most of us already are aware of. Hormonal birth control stops your ovaries from releasing eggs and stops the production of hormones.

Your cycle has 3 phases

• FOLLICULAR PHASE 7-21 days long taking place around day six to day 14

• You have around 608 follicles, each containing an egg and they produce estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone

• Follicles take 100 days to mature from their beginning formation to ovulation. If these follicles are not healthy at any point over those 100 days then that can show up as a problem with your period down the road. Unhealthy cells making unhealthy tissues and you have heard me say this before. So an unhealthy follicle can show up months later as a significant problem for you

• When follicles enter the follicular phase, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) tells your follicles to make estrogen

• Estradiol comes from your follicles, other forms of estrogen like estrone come from fat tissue and also from your gut bacteria.

• Estradiol boosts mood and libido by boosting serotonin and dopamine

• It helps you be more sensitive to insulin allowing you to keep fat off and preventing insulin resistance

• It also plays a role in your uterus lining growing and thickening- this means, the more estradiol, the thicker your uterine lining and the heavier your period will be

• OVULATION PHASE occurs around day 14

• This happens when a follicle reaches its destination, swells up and releases an egg. This is ovulation. You may feel the rupture on your lower pelvis. Once this occurs, a pregnancy can also occur

• You need ovulation to make progesterone

• LUTEAL PHASE from day 15-28

• The ruptured follicle that released an egg becomes the corpus luteum and releases progesterone

• How healthy the corpus luteum is, is affected by whether or not that 100 day journey of the follicle was healthy. Healthy cells make healthy tissues …..

• This phase and the corpus luteum can be affected by your thyroid health and nutrient deficiencies. You need a solid 100 days of good health to produce a healthy corpus luteum

• The progesterone made in this phase is really made to build a healthy pregnancy. It also balances out your estrogen levels. it thins your uterine lining, it helps prevent breast cancer compared to estrogen promoting it. It boosts thyroid hormone which is actually part of raising your body temperature.

• Having a balance between progesterone and estrogen can keep your period aka your flow light!

• Progesterone reduces inflammation, helps you build muscle and helps you sleep. it protects against heart disease and helps you handle stress better by calming your nervous system

• Hormonal birth control doesn’t provide this calming effect and may in fact cause anxiety and apparently can even change the shape of your brain according to Peterson & colleagues from the American Journal of Psychiatry.

• Your luteal phase lasts 10-16 days if you don’t become pregnant. At this point the corpus luteum shrinks, progesterone drops off and you begin your period.

• A healthy body will produce a healthy period.

• A healthy corpus luteum with adequate progesterone production will create a healthy flow

• period flow should be well formed and flow should not be super heavy

• ideally you would not have any clotting which may be occurring in a hypothyroid state

Day one is the first day of your heavy flow and the start of a new follicular phase. This lasts from 5-7 days.

If you are not making enough progesterone it is due to a short luteal phase. Some causes of this are long or heavy periods, PMS, or spotting.

A very heavy period consists of a flow releasing more than 80mL or a total of 16 fully soaked regular tampons or 8 super over all the days of your period. It can also be a period lasting 7+ days. If yours lasts more than 7 days, you should consult your doctor.

Copper IUD’s, perimenopause, no ovulation, thyroid problems, and endometriosis are reasons for a heavy bleed. The biggest cause of heavy bleeds though is having low progesterone and high estrogen. Too much estrogen will also cause sore or tender breasts, PMS and fibroids.

Hypothyroidism is a common reason for a heavy flow. Remember every cell in your body has receptors for thyroid hormone. Every cell needs thyroid hormone. if you don’t have enough thyroid hormone, your follicles won’t be healthy, you may not ovulate which creates whats called an anovulatory cycle and you won’t make progesterone because you didn’t ovulate.

Hypothyroidism affects your body’s ability to coagulate your blood and slows down estrogen metabolism. This means your body can’t get rid of estrogen as well. So if you have a really really soft bowel movement on the start of your period that can be because you are not able to metabolize estrogen well. Not being able to coagulate your blood means a flow that flows more.

This is the basic story. An important story for you to know even if you are in menopause because it may answer questions for you about why you suffered over the years. If you are currently suffering with a really heavy period, what would it be worth to you to be able to solve it? You don’t have to have a heavy, horrible period. I suffered with this very issue my entire life. My wish for you is that you can take control of your health and your body’s healing process so you can have the highest quality of life possible. No more suffering with heavy periods or fatigue or exercise intolerance or whatever else you’re going through.

Don’t waste your time guessing or even wishing things were different. Your health doesn’t really have a price tag does it? What is the cost of your hypothyroidism now? How is your quality of life? How is the quality of your relationships? Hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s affect relationships too. Get rid of the crazy that comes with a body that is not getting what it needs.

Are you ready to get off the couch, off the sidelines of your life and feel great again? I’m here to help. I can help you feel better. Health has no price tag and you know you only have this one life here and now. Let’s make it a great one. Schedule your discovery call at helpforhashimotos.com and click on the Get Help tab and you can schedule your discovery call so I can learn more about you.

Sign up for my newsletter while you are there and you can get your Definitive Guide to Hashimoto’s.

Thanks so much for tuning in!

Are heavy periods and hypothyroidism related?

If I take Armour Thyroid will it interfere with drinking celery juice everyday?   Julie

Hi Julie, 

First of all, it depends on how you are taking your meds and when you are taking them. Do you take it first thing in the morning with water? Or do you take it sublingually (under your tongue)? Most thyroid meds need to have time to absorb when taken orally so I wouldn’t drink your celery juice and then take your pill. Personally I take my Armour by chewing it up and putting it under my tongue and letting it dissolve directly in to my blood stream. Then you don’t have to wait to eat. I can’t speak to how this works with T4 only medications though. 

Celery in general is really good for us. It has never really been a favorite of mine but I do eat it- mostly as part of the onion/carrot/celery base for soups but I have been drinking some celery juice too. I cannot stand the taste by itself though so I have to do a mixture of celery, cucumber, lemon or apple. 

Celery is anti-inflammatory, especially protecting the digestive tract from inflammation. Celery contains pectin which forms a gel like substance and can help move things along so to speak. It can also help lower cholesterol. 

Celery is a good antioxidant containing vitamin C and flavanoids. You should eat your fresh celery within 5-7 days to be sure you are getting all the good stuff before it loses all the nutrients you are buying it for. 

It is high in vitamin K, molybdenum, folate, potassium, B vitamins, fiber and several minerals. 

Celery can decrease oxidative damage (damage to cells) too. So all in all it is a really good thing to have in your diet. Go ahead and enjoy it. 

I had a question a while back about how menstrual cycles are affected. I misplaced the actual question because I got so busy with school but if I am remembering right, it was about heavy periods. If you asked this question which would have been months ago and this is not correct, please email me at stephanie@outofthewoodsnutriiton.com and clarify what you wanted to know. I’ve been down a rabbit hole of scientific research which is really time consuming so I spent the better part of yesterday trying to find some good information on how hypothyroidism affects a woman’s menstrual cycle. If you are a guy who is listening- this is for you because you likely know a woman or two and it won’t kill you to know this information. 

It seems like everything I research boils down to not enough free T3 when it comes to problems and hypothyroidism. 

How does thyroid problems, specifically hypothyroidism affect a woman’s period?

• not enough thyroid hormone, ovaries might not make enough progesterone which helps keep flow low

• not enough thyroid hormone, you might not make enough of the coagulation factors that prevent heavy bleeding

• not enough thyroid hormone, you make less sex hormone binding globulin and are exposed to more estrogen which can lower progesterone. progesterone thins the uterine lining and prevents heavy menstrual flow.

Weeks AD. Menorrhagia and hypothyroidism. Evidence supports association between hypothyroidism and menorrhagia. BMJ. 2000 Mar 4;320(7235):649.

Menorrhagia is the medical term for heavy menstrual periods which can be common for women with hypothyroidism. It has been suggested that diagnosing hypothyroidism as a cause for menorrhagia is not happening as often as it should be. One study tested for thyrotrophin releasing hormone (a signal from the brain to release TSH which tells the thyroid to make T4) in 67 women with heavy periods that had normal blood levels of thyroixine (t4) and TSH. The women treated with thyroxine saw an improvement in their periods/flow to what is considered normal. So if you are on medication and still having heavy periods, your medication may not be optimized. This was me from the get go. I finally went to the doctor for heavy periods and she put me on the pill plus an IUD and then offered to remove my uterus because I was not a good candidate for ablasion. Once again- we should always be asking WHY. Why do you have heavy periods. Let’s stop getting bandaids for our problems and get to the bottom of the problem. Finding the root cause. 

Another study shows that low plasma levels of thyroid hormone shift the hemostatic system - the system that prevents or stops bleeding aka prevents hemorrhage- towards a hypocoagulable and hyper fibrinolytic state. Coagulation means that blood becomes more gel like instead of liquid. Hypocoagulable would mean that clots are slow to form. 

fibrinolysis means there is the break down of clots. Fibrin is a mesh like substance in the body that is broken down by the process of fibrinolysis. It is the body’s way of keeping blood clots from forming and becoming an issue. 

High levels of thyroid hormone in the blood create more coagulation and less breakdown of fibrin. In general, low T4 can lead to higher risk of bleeding and therefore higher blood loss.

Our body works well when all systems are working well together. Much of this dysfunction with periods really starts with managing blood sugar. I really wish I knew what I know now 30 years ago. So much of my life was just messed up. I almost said wasted but it wasn't really wasted but I did spend a lot of time not feeling good. Like just feeling unwell. Low energy, bad skin, sick all the time. Food is medicine guys. I can’t say that enough. 

Low plasma levels of thyroid hormone shift the hemostatic system towards a hypocoagulable and hyper fibrinolytic state. Coagulation means that blood becomes more gel like instead of liquid. Hypocoagulable would mean that clots are slow to form. 

Fibrinolysis means there is the break down of clots. Fibrin is a mesh like substance in the body that is broken down by the process of fibrinolysis. It is the body’s way of keeping blood clots from forming and becoming an issue. 

High levels of thyroid hormone in the blood create more coagulation and less breakdown of fibrin. In general, low T4 can lead to higher risk of bleeding and therefore higher blood loss.